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The Trials of Eric Mareo

Notes

page 163

Notes

Abbreviations

EMP Eric Mareo Papers, Department of Justice, Wellington, New Zealand
MP H.G.R. Mason Papers, MS-Papers-1751, Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand
PF Police Files on Eric Mareo, P1 1935/599, Archives New Zealand, Wellington
AS Auckland Star
Dom Dominion
EP Evening Post
NZH New Zealand Herald
Truth New Zealand Truth
Obs Observer
Wn Weekly News

Introduction

1 Notes of Evidence: His Majesty the King v. Eric Mareo, 17-26 February 1936 [First Trial Notes of Evidence], EMP, p.176.

2 NZH, 26 February 1936.

3 'Criticus' [Melville Harcourt], I Appeal (Auckland: Oswald-Sealy, 1945), p.71.

4 AS, 18 June 1936.

5 Mr Justice Callan to the Attorney-General, 24 June 1936, EMP.

6 See J.L. Robson, Sacred Cows and Rogue Elephants: Policy Development in the New Zealand Justice Department (Wellington: Government Printing Office, 1987), p.110.

7 Adele Bridgens, back cover of Freda Stark: Her Extraordinary Life, by Dianne Haworth and Diane Miller (Auckland: HarperCollins, 2000). Stark's biographers also tell the story of the Mareo trials but they rely almost entirely on contemporary newspaper reports and their subject's recollection of the events. Because they did not consult the Notes of Evidence of either of the trials, the various police reports and other archival material relevant to the case, there are some inaccuracies and numerous significant omissions in their account. The story needs to be retold if only to ensure accuracy and completion.

8 For a discussion of the many ways in which the law uses storytelling, see Law's Stories: Narrative and Rhetoric in the Law, edited by Peter Brooks and Paul Gewirtz, (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1996).

page 164

1 'A Very Experienced Man of the World': The Crown's Case

1 Mary Martin as quoted in John M. Thomson, The Oxford History of New Zealand Music (Auckland: Oxford University Press, 1991), p.145.

2 Maurice Hurst, Music and the Stage in New Zealand: A Century of Entertainment, 1840-1943 (Auckland: Charles Begg, 1944), p.9.

3 The classic account is Andreas Huyssen's After the Great Divide: Modernism, Mass Culture, Postmodernism (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1985). However, more recently the notion of an unbridgeable divide between high modernism and mass culture has been questioned by Michael Tratner, Modernism and Mass Politics: Joyce, Woolf, Eliot, Yeats (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1995), the contributors to High and Low Moderns: Literature and Culture, 1889-1939, edited by Maria Di Battista and Lucy McDiarmid (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996) and Lawrence Rainey, Institutions of Modernism: Literary Elites and Public Culture (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998).

4 Adrienne Simpson, Opera's Farthest Frontier: A History of Professional Opera in New Zealand (Auckland: Reed, 1996), p.164. For a discussion of the theatre and New Zealand musicals, see Peter Harcourt, A Dramatic Appearance: New Zealand Theatre 1920-1970 (Wellington: Methuen, 1978), p.7-75 and Fantasy and Folly: The Lost World of New Zealand Musicals, 1880-1940 (Wellington: Steele Roberts, 2002).

5 Obs, 7 & 14 September 1933.

6 Obs, 2 July 1936.

7 Obs, 22 September 1934.

8 Obs, 23 November 1933.

9 Ibid.

10 New Zealand Radio Record, 8 December 1933, p.15.

11 Ibid.

12 Ibid.

13 NZH, 22 September 1934.

14 Obs, 23 November 1933.

15 Radio Record8 December 1933, p.15.

16 Obs, 2 July 1936.

17 Ibid.

18 Obs, 13 September 1934.

19 Quoted by P. J. Gibbons, 'The Climate of Opinion', Oxford History of New Zealand, 2nd ed., edited by Geoffrey Rice (Auckland: Oxford University Press, 1992), p.321.

20 First Trial Notes of Evidence, EMP, pp.57-8.

21 First Trial Notes of Evidence, EMP, p.59.

22 Ibid.

23 First Trial Notes of Evidence, EMP, p.60.

24 NZH, 26 February 1936.

25 First Trial Notes of Evidence, EMP, p.26.

26 First Trial Notes of Evidence, EMP, p.60.

page 165

27 First Trial Notes of Evidence, EMP, p.28.

28 Statement to Police, 5 June 1936, EMP.

29 First Trial Notes of Evidence, EMP, p.60.

30 First Trial Notes of Evidence, EMP, p.19.

31 First Trial Notes of Evidence, EMP, pp.16, 18, 22.

32 First Trial Notes of Evidence, EMP, p.5.

33 PF, Part V.

34 NZH, 26 February 1936.

35 First Trial Notes of Evidence, EMP, p.62.

36 First Trial Notes of Evidence, EMP, pp.31, 32.

37 Statement to the Police, 15 April 1935, EMP.

38 Ibid.

39 First Trial Notes of Evidence, EMP, pp.36-7.

40 First Trial Notes of Evidence, EMP, p.63-4.

41 Ibid.

42 First Trial Notes of Evidence, EMP, p.64.

43 First Trial Notes of Evidence, EMP, p.65.

44 First Trial Notes of Evidence, EMP, pp.65-6.

45 First Trial Notes of Evidence, EMP, p.66.

46 First Trial Notes of Evidence, EMP, p.110.

47 First Trial Notes of Evidence, EMP, p.67.

48 Ibid.

49 First Trial Notes of Evidence, EMP, pp.69.

50 Ibid.

51 First Trial Notes of Evidence, EMP, p.70-1.

52 First Trial Notes of Evidence, EMP, p.187.

53 First Trial Notes of Evidence, EMP, p.174.

54 First Trial Notes of Evidence, EMP, p 175.

55 First Trial Notes of Evidence, EMP, pp.176.

56 First Trial Notes of Evidence, EMP, p.72.

57 First Trial Notes of Evidence, EMP, pp.109-10.

58 NZH, 26 February 1936.

59 First Trial Notes of Evidence, EMP, pp. 177-8.

60 First Trial Notes of Evidence, EMP, pp.6-7.

61 First Trial Notes of Evidence, EMP, p.182.

62 First Trial Notes of Evidence, EMP, p.130.

63 NZH, 26 February 1936.

2 'Canned': Mareo's Defence

1 NZH, 26 February 1936.

2 First Trial Notes of Evidence, EMP, p.59.

3 Statement to the Police, 5 June 1936, EMP.

4 PF, Part V.

5 Ibid.

6 First Trial Notes of Evidence, EMP, p.58.

page 166

7 First Trial Notes of Evidence, EMP, p.11.

8 First Trial Notes of Evidence, EMP, p.8.

9 First Trial Notes of Evidence, EMP, p.61.

10 NZH, 26 February 1936.

11 MP, 3/12.

12 First Trial Notes of Evidence, EMP, pp.31, 32.

13 First Trial Notes of Evidence, EMP, p.31.

14 First Trial Notes of Evidence, EMP, p.101.

15 First Trial Notes of Evidence, EMP, p.104.

16 First Trial Notes of Evidence, EMP, p.119.

17 First Trial Notes of Evidence, EMP, p.126.

18 First Trial Notes of Evidence, EMP, p.103.

19 First Trial Notes of Evidence, EMP, p.175.

20 Statement to the Police, 19 April 1935, EMP.

21 NZH, 26 February 1936.

22 Ibid.

23 First Trial Notes of Evidence, EMP, p.176.

24 Portrait of a Profession: The Centennial Book of the New Zealand Law Society, edited by Robin Cooke (Wellington: Reed, 1969), p.175.

25 Sir Vincent Meredith, A Long Brief: Recollections of a Crown Solicitor (Auckland: Collins, 1966), p.123.

26 NZH, 27 February 1936.

27 First Trial Notes of Evidence, EMP, p.160.

28 First Trial Notes of Evidence, EMP, p.147.

29 First Trial Notes of Evidence, EMP, p.46.

30 First Trial Notes of Evidence, EMP, p.132.

31 First Trial Notes of Evidence, EMP, pp.169, 171.

32 First Trial Notes of Evidence, EMP, p.141.

33 First Trial Notes of Evidence, EMP, p.45.

34 First Trial Notes of Evidence, EMP, p.46.

35 First Trial Notes of Evidence, EMP, p.47.

36 First Trial Notes of Evidence, EMP, p.142.

37 First Trial Notes of Evidence, EMP, p.150.

38 First Trial Notes of Evidence, EMP, p.116.

39 First Trial Notes of Evidence, EMP, p.28.

40 First Trial Notes of Evidence, EMP, p.55.

41 First Trial Notes of Evidence, EMP, p.61.

42 Ibid.

43 First Trial Notes of Evidence, EMP, p.78.

44 Statement to the Police, 15 April 1935, EMP.

45 First Trial Notes of Evidence, EMP, p.175.

46 First Trial Notes of Evidence, EMP, p.8.

47 NZH, 27 February 1936.

48 Ibid; First Trial Notes of Evidence, EMP, p.183.

49 First Trial Notes of Evidence, EMP, p.129.

50 First Trial Notes of Evidence, EMP, p.167, 162.

page 167

51 Dr Chris Corns, Anatomy of Long Criminal Trials (Carlton South: Australian Institute of Judicial Administration Incorporated, 1997).

3 The Second Trial

1 Whitington to O'Leary, 18 February 1936, EMP.

2 Whitington to O'Leary, 19 February 1936, EMP.

3 O'Leary to the Minister of Justice, 5 March 1936, EMP.

4 Ibid.

5 Riano to O'Leary, 3 March 1936, EMP.

6 Statement to the Police by Dawson, 17 March 1936, EMP.

7 Statement to the Police by Hooper, 19 March 1936, EMP.

8 Statement to the Police by Kingsland, 17 March 1936, EMP.

9 Aekins to the Minister of Justice, 15 April 1936, EMP.

10 Notes of Evidence: His Majesty the King v. Eric Mareo 1-17 June, 1936. [Second Trial Notes of Evidence], EMP, pp.316.

11 Portrait of a Profession, p.223. On Meredith's hostility to Acheson, see R.P. Boast, 'Indigenous Peoples and the Law,' www.Kennett.co.nz/law/indigenous/ 1999/41.html.

12 Second Trial Notes of Evidence, EMP, p.229.

13 Second Trial Notes of Evidence, EMP, p.228.

14 Second Trial Notes of Evidence, EMP, pp.233, 237.

15 Second Trial Notes of Evidence, EMP, p.251.

16 Second Trial Notes of Evidence, EMP, p.239.

17 Second Trial Notes of Evidence, EMP, p.242.

18 Second Trial Notes of Evidence, EMP, p.258.

19 As even the Attorney-General, a layperson, was able discover during his research, MP.

20 Second Trial Notes of Evidence, EMP, p.171.

21 Second Trial Notes of Evidence, EMP, p.188.

22 Second Trial Notes of Evidence, EMP, p.198.

23 Second Trial Notes of Evidence, EMP, p.177.

24 Summing-up of Callan J., EMP, p.55.

25 Summing-up of Callan J., EMP, p.27.

26 Summing-up of Callan J., EMP, p.39.

27 Summing-up of Callan J., EMP, p.37.

28 Summing-up of Callan J., EMP, p.43.

29 Summing-up of Callan J., EMP, p.45.

30 Summing-up of Callan J., EMP, p.51.

31 Summing-up of Callan J., EMP, p.53.

32 Summing-up of Callan J., EMP, p.57.

33 AS, 18 June 1936.

34 Ibid.

35 Ibid.

36 Portrait of a Profession, p.130.

37 AS, 18 June 1936.

page 168

4 Who Was Eric Mareo?

1 NZH15 February 1936.

2 WN, 12 February 1936.

3 NZH, 7 September 1935.

4 We are grateful to Allan Thomas for pointing out these names to us.

5 Truth, 15 July 1936.

6 Obs, 2 July 1936.

7 Truth, 8 July 1936.

8 PF, Part I.

9 Obs, 2 July 1936.

10 P.J. Gibbons, 'The Climate of Opinion,' Oxford History of New Zealand, p.336.

11 Tom Brooking, 'Economic Transformations,' The Oxford History of New Zealand, p.252.

12 Quoted in Tony Simpson, The Sugarbag Years (Auckland: Godwit, 1997), p.202.

13 Danielle Sprecher, 'Good Clothes are Good Business: Gender, Consumption and Appearance in the Office, 1918-39', The Gendered Kiwi, edited by Caroline Daley and Deborah Montgomerie (Auckland: Auckland University Press, 1999) p.149.

14 Obs, 13 September 1934.

15 R.A. Lochore, From Europe to New Zealand: An Account of our Continental European Settlers (Wellington: Reed, 1951), pp.13-14.

16 Truth, 4 March 1936.

17 Ibid.

18 Police Report on Eric Mareo, EMP.

19 PF, Part II.

20 K.C. Aekins to the Minister of Justice, 25 July 1936, EMP

21 Police Report on Eric Mareo, EMP.

22 PF, Part I.

23 PF, Parti.

24 Harcourt, I Appeal, pp.67-8.

5 The Lesbian Accusation

1 Statement to the Police, 5 June 1935, EMP.

2 PF, Part IV

3 Harcourt (I Appeal) does claim that during the first trial 'salaciously-minded females revelled in seeing rumours transformed into facts by the authoritative backing of the Crown. So the gossips were right after all. The information, which had been bandied round the town for months, threw a new light upon the relationships of the Mareos' (p.72). However, it was not 'stated' in court that she was a 'lesbian' and this was certainly not given 'the authoritative backing of the Crown'. It seems that in his enthusiasm for Mareo's cause, Harcourt wants to discredit not only these 'gossips' for spreading such a rumour but also Thelma by verifying that it was true. In another book written after the trials the question of whether Thelma was a 'pervert' is raised but not answered. Richard Singer, 24 Notable Trials (Auckland: Oswald-Sealy, 1944) p.126.

page 169

4 Truth, 4 March 1936.

5 NZH, 26 February 1936.

6 AS, 16 June 1936.

7 NZH, 27 February 1936.

8 Edward Shorter, From the Mind into the Body: The Cultural Origins of Psychosomatic Symptoms (Toronto: Maxwell Macmillan, 1994), pp.42, 44.

9 First Trial Notes of Evidence, EMP, p.51.

10 First Trial Notes of Evidence, EMP, p.28.

11 First Trial Notes of Evidence, EMP, pp.80-1.

12 First Trial Notes of Evidence, EMP, p.9.

13 First Trial Notes of Evidence, EMP, p.80.

14 First Trial Notes of Evidence, EMP, p.52.

15 First Trial Notes of Evidence, EMP, p.83.

16 PF, Part V

17 First Trial Notes of Evidence, EMP, p.29.

18 Second Trial Notes of Evidence, EMP, p.215.

19 Second Trial Notes of Evidence, EMP, p.91.

20 Julie Glamuzina and Alison Laurie, Parker & Hulme: A Lesbian View (Ithaca, NY: Firebrand Books, 1995), p.160.

21 Glamuzina and Laurie, Parker & Hulme, pp.158, 150.

22 Riano to O'Leary, 3 March 1936, EMP.

23 Jeffrey Weeks, Coming Out: Homosexual Politics in Britain from the Nineteenth Century to the Present (London, New York: Quartet Books, 1977), p.12. See also Michel Foucault, The History of Sexuality. Volume 1: An Introduction, trans. Robert Hurley, (New York: Vintage, 1980), pp.43, 101.

24 George Chauncey, 'Christian Brotherhood or Sexual Perversion? Homosexual Identities and the Construction of Sexual Boundaries in the World War One Era', Hidden from History: Reclaiming the Gay and Lesbian Past, edited by Martin Bauml Duberman, Martha Vicinus, and George Chauncey (New York: New American Library, 1989), pp.294-317.

25 Weeks, Coming Out, p.12.

26 Stevan Eldred-Grigg, Pleasures of the Flesh: Sex & Drugs in Colonial New Zealand (Wellington: Reed, 1984), p.124.

27 Report by Sir William Willcox, EMP.

28 P.P. Lynch to the Under-Secretary for the Department of Justice, 2 December 1941, EMP.

29 Quoted by Neil Miller, Out of the Past: Gay and Lesbian History from 1869 to the Present (New York: Vintage, 1995), p.26.

30 Mental Health and the Community, edited by P.J. Lawrence (Christchurch: Canterbury Mental Health Council, 1963), p.373.

31 Second Trial Notes of Evidence, EMP, p.251.

page 170

32 Quoted by Miller, Out of the Past, p.190. For a recent account of the trials, see Diana Southami, The Trials of Radclyffe Hall (London: Virago, 1999)

33 Second Trial Notes of Evidence, EMP, p.254.

34 Truth, 18 March 1936.

35 See Julie Glamuzina, 'An Outstanding Masquerade', and Jenny Coleman 'Unsettled Women: Deviant Genders in Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth- Century New Zealand', Lesbian Studies in Aotearoa/New Zealand, edited by Alison J. Laurie (Binghamton, NY: Harrington, 2001).

36 Lillian Faderman, Odd Girls and Twilight Lovers: A History of Lesbian Life in Twentieth-Century America (London: Penguin, 1992), p.48.

37 Faderman, Odd Girls, p.1.

38 Faderman, Odd Girls, pp.13, 14.

39 See Sally Irwin, Between Heaven and Earth: The Life of a Mountaineer, Freda Du Faur 1882-1935 (Melbourne: White Crane Press, 2000), p.283-5. See also Aorewa McLeod, 'New Zealand's Lost Lesbian Writers and Artists', Alison J. Laurie, 'Frances Mary Hodgkins: Journeys into the Hearts of Women', and Jenny Coleman 'Unsettled Women: Deviant Genders in Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth-Century New Zealand', Lesbian Studies in Aotearoa/New Zealand.

40 Truth, 18 March 1936.

41 Boston Marriages: Romantic but Asexual Relationships among Contemporary Lesbians, edited by Esther D. Rothblum and Kathleen A. Brehony (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1993), p.34-5.

42 PF, Part V.

6 A Pharmakon, a Pharmakos and a Pure Woman

1 Second Trial Notes of Evidence, EMP, p.134.

2 Second Trial Notes of Evidence, EMP, p.146.

3 For some influential near-contemporary accounts of New Zealand puritanism, see E.H. McCormick, Letters and Art in New Zealand (Wellington: Department of Internal Affairs, 1940), Bill Pearson, 'Fretful Sleepers', Landfall, 6 (1952): 201-30 and R.M. Chapman, 'Fiction and the Social Pattern', Landfall, 7 (1953): 26-58. For a discussion of Puritanism and counter- puritanism before the First World War, see Eldred-Grigg, Pleasures of the Flesh. Although Eldred-Grigg attempts to counter the perception of New Zealand as an unusually puritan country it is significant that his history does not extend past 1915 when, arguably, 'puritanism' was at its height.

4 Phillida Bunkle, 'The Origins of the Women's Movement in New Zealand: The Women's Christian Temperance Union 1885-1895', Women in New Zealand Society, edited by Phillida Bunkle and Beryl Hughes (Boston: Allen and Unwin, 1980), p.72. See also Raewyn Dalziel 'The Colonial Helpmeet: Women's Role and the Vote in Nineteenth Century New Zealand', Women in History: Essays on European Women in New Zealand, edited by Barbara Brookes, Charlotte Macdonald and Margaret Tennant (Wellington: Allen and Unwin/Port Nicholson Press, 1986), pp.55-68 and Barbara Brookes, 'A Weakness for Strong Subjects', New Zealand Journal of History 27 (1993): 140-56.

page 171

5 Erik Olssen, 'Families and the Gendering of European New Zealand in the Colonial Period, 1840-80', The Gendered Kiwi, p.54. For an earlier discussion of the post-colonial period, see the same author's 'Women, Work and Family: 1880-1926' in Women in New Zealand Society pp. 159-83.

6 This at least was the case in Australia, according to Ann Summers in her classic Damned Whores and God's Police (Ringwood, Vic: Penguin, 1994).

7 Roberta Nicholls, The Women's Parliament: The National Council of Women of New Zealand 1896-1920 (Wellington: Victoria University Press, 1996), pp.68-88 and Dorothy Page, The National Council of Women: A Centennial History (Auckland: Auckland University Press, 1996). However Charlotte Macdonald has countered what she calls the '"the black hole" of New Zealand's feminist history' between the first and the second 'waves' of feminism, in The Vote, the Pill and the Demon Drink: A History of Feminist Writing in New Zealand, 1869-1993 (Wellington: Bridget Williams Books, 1993), p.8. On the conservative aspects of the Plunket Society, see Erik Olssen, 'Truby King and the Plunket Society: An Analysis of a Prescriptive Ideology,' New Zealand Journal of History 15 (1981): 3-23.

8 Quoted in Sue Kedgley, Mum's the Word (Auckland: Random House, 1996), p.115. Of course it has been argued that the gender imbalance of nineteenth- century New Zealand society resulted in a masculinist society. However, there is no logical reason why a gender imbalance could not create the cultural conditions where both highly 'feminine' and 'masculine' values could thrive. A relative absence of women would make 'feminine' virtues desirable by virtue of their scarcity and unmarried men and their 'batchelor' values commonplace by virtue of their numerical predominance. For the case that the gender imbalance created a 'man's country', see Jock Phillips, A Man's Country? The Image of the Pakeha Male, revised ed. (Auckland: Auckland University Press, 1996), pp.4-11. For the contrary position, see Raewyn Dalziel, 'The Colonial Helpmeet: Women's Role and the Vote in Nineteenth-Century New Zealand', in Women in History, pp.55-68 and for the skeptical position about the effects of the gender imbalance see Charlotte Macdonald, 'Too Many Men and Too Few Women: Gender's "Fatal Impact" in Nineteenth-Century Colonies', in The Gendered Kiwi, p.28.

9 AS, 17 June 1936.

10 Meredith, A Long Brief, p.96.

11 John Parascandola, Drugs and Narcotics in History, edited by Roy Porter and Mikulas Teich (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), p.156.

12 See Derek Chain's and Gloria Rawlinson, The Book of Iris: A Life of Robin Hyde (Auckland: Auckland University Press, 2002), p.189. We are grateful to Fergus Barrowman for pointing this out. Hyde's article is reprinted in Disputed Ground: Robin Hyde, Journalist, introduced and selected by Gillian Boddy & Jacqueline Matthews (Wellington: Victoria University Press, 1991), p.257.

13 Charles Raymond Henwood, A Turned on World: Drug use in New Zealand (Wellington: Hicks Smith, 1971), p.61. See also Redmer Yska, New Zealand Green: The Story of Marijuana in New Zealand (Auckland: Bateman, 1990) pp.7-34.

page 172

14 Parascandola, Drugs and Narcotics in History, p.160.

15 Harcourt, I Appeal, p.72. For the association of drugs and bohemianism during the postwar period, see Marek Kohn, Dope Girls: The Birth of the British Drug Underground (London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1992).

16 See Zygmunt Baumann's description of 'proteophobia' as 'the apprehension and vexation related not to something or someone disquieting through otherness and unfamiliarity, but to something or someone that does not fit the structure of the orderly world, does not fall easily into any of the established categories' and his argument that '"the Jews'" in antisemitic discourse 'incarnate' the kind of 'ambivalence' that occasions such 'proteophobia' in 'Allosemitism: Premodern, Modern, Postmodern' in Modernity, Culture and 'the Jew', edited by Bryan Cheyette and Laura Marcus (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1998), p.144.

17 Harcourt, I Appeal, p.68.

18 Helen Blagrove to the Minister of Justice, 1 July 1936, EMP.

19 NZH, 26 February 1936.

20 Truth, 18 March 1936.

21 First Trial Notes of Evidence, EMP, p.29.

22 Harcourt, I Appeal, p.67.

23 'I Appeal' by 'Criticus': A Review, EMP.

24 Obs, 9 July 1936.

25 Quoted in Barbara Brookes, 'Housewives' Depression: The Debate over Abortion and Birth Control in the 1930s', New Zealand Journal of History 15(1981), p.130.

26 Brookes, 'Housewives' Depression', 122n. See also Phillipa Mein Smith, Maternity in Dispute: New Zealand, 1920-1939 (Wellington: Historical Publications Branch, 1986), pp. 101-15 and Mary Dobbie, A Matter for Women: Early Years of the Family Planning Movement (Auckland: Family Planning Association, 1995).

27 Truth, 24 June 1936.

28 Ibid.

29 Aekins to the Governor-General, 14 July 1936, EMP.

30 Truth, 24 June 1936.

31 See Bronwyn Dalley, 'Criminal Conversations: Infanticide, Gender and Sexuality in Nineteenth-Century New Zealand', The Gendered Kiwi, pp.63- 86 and 'The Cultural Remains of Elsie Walker', Fragments: New Zealand Social and Cultural History, edited by Bronwyn Dalley and Bronwyn Labrun (Auckland: Auckland University Press, 2000), pp.140-62.

32 See Kai Jensen, Whole Men: The Masculine Tradition in New Zealand Literature (Auckland: Auckland University Press, 1996) for a discussion of this literary tradition and more generally Gender, Culture and Power: Challenging New Zealand's Gendered Culture, edited by Bev James and Kay Saville-Smith (Auckland: Oxford University Press, 1989) Phillips, A Man's Country? and Masculinities in AotearoalNew Zealand, edited by Robin Law, Hugh Campbell and John Dolan (Palmerston North: Dunmore Press, 1999).

page 173

7 In the Condemned Cell

1 Geoffrey Robertson, The justice Game (London: Chatto & Windus, 1998), p.97.

2 This was at least the official rationale for the speedy dispatch of convicted murderers. Robertson QC gives the real reason as being '… to emphasise the deterrent effect of punishment which followed so soon after the exposure of the facts of the crime in court' and also '… to ensure that no campaign of sympathy for the criminal had time to build up a head of steam.' The Justice Game, p.75.

3 These are actually the written words of Melville Harcourt who wrote an unconventional biography of Moreton that takes the conceit of being an autobiography, A Parson in Prison: A Biography of the Rev. George Edgar Moreton (Auckland: Whitcombe & Tombs, 1942), pp.182, 298.

4 Mareo to O'Leary, 2 July 1936.

5 Truth, 1 July 1936.

6 Ibid.

7 A Mother to Mason, 8 July 1936, EMP.

8 Harcourt, I Appeal, pp.70, 72.

9 Petition to the Minister of Justice, 16 July 1936, EMP.

10 Press interest was sparked it seems by a leader in the Christchurch Star Sun on 28 February 1936. See for example the subsequent editorials in the Greymouth Evening Star, 29 February 1936 and the Wanganui Chronical, 4 March 1936 and Pauline Engel, The Abolition of Capital Punishment in New Zealand, 1935-1961 (Wellington: Dept. of Justice, 1977), pp.10-17, from whom these references have been taken.

11 WN, 4 March 1936.

12 Quoted in Engel, The Abolition of Capital Punishment, p.12.

13 Ibid.

14 Truth, 24 June 1936.

15 Sherwood Young, Guilty on the Gallows: Famous Capital Crimes of New Zealand (Wellington: Grantham House, 1998), p.9.

16 Callan to the Attorney-General, 24 June 1936, EMP.

17 Ibid.

18 O'Leary to Mason, 24 July 1936, EMP.

19 Meredith to the Solicitor-General, 26 July 1936, EMP.

20 Elizabeth Mareo to Mason, 26 June 1936, EMP.

21 Quoted in Greg Newbold, Punishment and Politics: The Maximum Security Prison in New Zealand (Auckland: Oxford University Press, 1989), p.7.

22 Dallard to Mason, 17 July 1936, EMP.

23 Ibid.

24 Who were: the Right Hon. M.J. Savage, Hon. P. Fraser, Hon. W. Nash, Hon. D.G. Sullivan, Hon. H.T. Armstrong, Hon. R. Semple, Hon. W.E. Parry, Hon. P.C. Webb, Hon. F. Jones, Hon. W. Lee Martin, Hon. F. Langstone and Hon. M. Fagan.

page 174

25 Truth, 12 August 1936. By way of addendum, the death penalty for murder was not abolished until 1941 when, somewhat bizarrely, amending legislation was rushed through the house in order to avoid a potential constitutional crisis. The then Governor-General, Sir Cyril Newall, indicated that he would refuse to act on the advice of Cabinet that a sentence of flogging which had been imposed on four prisoners at Mt Eden should be remitted. He did so not because he was an advocate of corporal punishment (he was not) but because he considered it to be constitutionally improper for the Executive to override the will of Parliament (as expressed in the form of statutory penalties for certain offences) in this way. Of course the same constitutional objection could be made to the Executive's long-standing practice in relation to capital cases. In any event, the Government's solution was to announce that it was shortly to introduce a bill abolishing flogging. And as the issues of corporal and capital punishment had always been regarded by the Labour Party as inextricably linked, it followed that the amendment would, and did, also proscribe the death penalty. Equally strangely - in light of Mason's oft repeated comments that abolition was one matter upon which the Labour Party would not tolerate dissent - the amending legislation was deliberately introduced and passed while the Prime Minister, Peter Fraser, was overseas, apparently in the knowledge that it might well not have been supported by him. In the following years, which saw the reintroduction of the death penalty by a National Government and its abolition again as a result of the passage of the Crimes Bill 1961, the Mareo case was often cited by proponents of abolition in support of their arguments.

8 'J'Accuse': Facts and Phalluses

1 Holmes to the Minister of Justice, 28 August 1942, EMP.

2 Department of Health to Dallard, 21 July 1936, EMP.

3 PF, Part IV.

4 Sir Douglas Robb, Foreword, Doctor Smith: Hokianga's 'King of the North', by G. Kemble Welch (Auckland: Blackwood & Janet Paul, 1965), p.17.

5 G.M. Smith, Notes from a Backblock Hospital (Christchurch: The Caxton Press, 1938).

6 PF, Part IV.

7 Dallard to Mason, 8 July 1942, EMP. In his book of personal reminiscences published in 1938, Notes from a Backblock Hospital, Smith provided an extended analysis of the trials and the inadequacy of the Crown's medical witnesses.

8 Opinion of Mr Edward G. Hemmerde, 4 October 1940, MP, 3/11.

9 Willcox Report, 4 July 1941, EMP.

10 PF, PartV.

11 Petition to the Prisons Board, 29 April 1943, EMP.

12 Barry Gustafson, Dictionary of New Zealand Biography, Vol. 4, 1921-1940, edited by Claudia Orange (Auckland: Auckland University Press, 1998), p.444-5.

page 175

13 Statutory Declaration by Dr Roche Lynch, EMP.

14 PF, Part II.

15 Notes Re Mareo by H.G.R. Mason, undated, EMP.

16 PF, Part III.

17 Second Trial Notes of Evidence, EMP, p.57.

18 PF, Part I.

19 Ibid.

20 Second Trial Notes of Evidence, EMP, p.120.

21 PF, Part III.

22 Memorandum to Cabinet, March 1945, MP, 3/8.

23 Harcourt, I Appeal, pp.56, 58.

24 Nancy M. Taylor, The Home Front, Vol. 1 of the Official History of New Zealand in the Second World War 1939-45 (Wellington: Government Printer, 1986), p.246.

25 PF, Part I.

26 Ibid.

27 Ibid.

9 A 'Topper' in Mt Eden Gaol

1 Truth, 9 June 1937.

2 Truth, 31 January 1940.

3 The Superintendent of Mt Eden Goal to the Controller-General of Prisons, 31 October 1936, EMP.

4 Pechotsch to Dallard, 30 November 1936, EMP.

5 Pechotsch to Dallard, 30 December 1936, EMP.

6 Harcourt, A Parson in Prison, p.299.

7 Singer, 24 Notable Trials, pp.122, 123.

8 Doidge to Mason, 14 February 1943, EMP.

9 New Zealand Parliamentary Debates, Vol. 261, 4 December 1942, pp.944- 6.

10 Parliamentary Debates, Vol. 261, p.945.

11 Second Trial Notes of Evidence, EMP, p.214.

12 Parliamentary Debates, Vol. 261, p.945.

13 Parliamentary Debates, Vol. 261, pp.944-5.

14 Parliamentary Debates, Vol. 261, p.946.

15 Sexton to Harker, 13 August 1943, MP, 3/8.

16 New Zealand Parliamentary Debates, Vol. 263, 25 August 1943, p.1019.

17 Parliamentary Debates, Vol. 263, pp.1019-20.

18 Dallard to Mason, 8 July 1942, EMP.

19 As quoted by Dallard to the Clerk of the Statutes Revision Committee, 21 September 1942.

20 Statement by Philip Patrick Lynch, 16 October 1944, EMP.

21 PF, Part II.

page 176

22 Ibid.

23 Statement by Philip Patrick Lynch, 16 October 1944, EMP. Dr Lynch would later republish a barely edited version of his report in No Remedy for Death: The Memoirs of a Pathologist (London: John Long, 1970), pp.115-26. In a private letter to Mrs Eleanor Spragg (née Brownlee) Mason claimed that 'Dr. Lynch's book gives a story quite contrary to fact and to uncontradicted trial evidence,' 1 October 1971, MP, 3/8.

24 PF, Part III.

25 Dallard to Meredith, 6 November 1942, EMP.

26 Mason to Dallard, 22 December 1942, EMP.

27 Mason to Dallard, 18 January 1943, EMP.

28 Mason to Dallard, 22 December 1942, EMP.

29 New Zealand Parliamentary Debates, Vol. 263, p.1018.

30 Mason to the Solicitor-General, 7 June 1945, MP, 3/12.

31 Dallard to 'Phil', 24 February 1943, EMP.

32 Mason to Dallard, 24 February 1943, EMP.

33 Dallard to Mason, 5 March 1943, EMP.The following year Dallard had fallen out with his minister again on a matter unrelated to the Mareo case. Following a long exchange of letters in the Hawera Star, Mason wrote in a minute: 'By turning the matter into a personal combat you desert an unassailable position for an impossible one. Please send no further communications to the press in reference to prison matters without reference to me.' Quoted in J.L. Robson, Sacred Cows and Rogue Elephants, p.46.

34 Minutes of the Prisons Board, 28 November 1944, EMP.

35 Harcourt, A Parson in Prison, p.302.

36 Minutes of the Prisons Board, 28 November 1944, EMP.

37 Petition for Release of Eric Mareo, 11 April 1945, EMP.

38 Eve to Mareo, 21 April 1945, EMP.

39 Superintendent of Mt Eden Goal to Dallard, 7 May 1945, EMP.

40 Dallard to Schramm, 23 July 1945, EMP.

41 H.E. Evans to Mason, 25 June 1945, MP, 3/12.

42 'I Appeal' by 'Criticus': A Review, EMP.

43 The King v. Mareo (No. 3), 10-13, 15, 16 April; 19 June 1946. Court of Appeal, Wellington. NZLR 669.

44 The King v. Mareo (No. 3), pp.671, 673, 674.

45 The King v. Mareo (No. 3), pp.671-2.

46 AS, 17 June 1936.

47 EP, 10 April 1946.

48 The King v. Mareo (No. 3), p.673.

10 Golden Years

1 Trott to Dallard, 26 December 1946, EMP.

2 Dallard to Trott, 11 December 1946, EMP.

3 Trott to Dallard, 6 February 1947, EMP.

4 Truth, 1 October 1947.

page 177

5 New Zealand Parliamentary Debates, Vol. 278, 7 October 1947, pp.693-4.

6 Truth, 15 October 1947.

7 Truth, 19 May 1948.

8 Ibid.

9 Truth, 23 June 1948.

10 Daliard to the Chief Probation Officer, 28 July 1948, EMP.

11 The Chief Probation Officer to Dallard, 30 July 1948, EMP.

12 Doctor's Report on Mareo's Health, 24 May 1949, EMP.

13 Mareo to Dallard, 27 May 1949, EMP.

14 Dallard to Mareo, 31 May 1949, EMP.

15 Mareo to the Minister of Justice, 17 October 1950, EMP.

16 Probation Report, 16 October 1950, EMP.

17 The Probation Officer to the Secretary for Justice, 23 May 1951, EMP.

18 The Probation Officer to the Secretary for Justice, 18 May 1955, EMP.

19 NZH, 9 August 1951; AS, 9 August 1951.

20 NZ Listener, 15 September 1953.

21 Ibid.

22 NZ Listener, 23 October 1953.

23 Press, 23 October 1953.

24 According to a letter from Mareo's probation officer to the Secretary for Justice, 7 June 1957, EMP.

25 Mareo to the Chairman and Members of the Prisons Board, 1 May 1955, EMP.

26 Probationer Officer to the Secretary for Justice, 7 June 1957, EMP.

27 Marshall to the Chief Justice, 4 December 1957, EMP.

28 Ibid.

29 The Secretary for Justice to Mason, 9 December 1958, EMP.

Epilogue

1 Haworth and Miller, Freda Stark, pp. 128-31.

2 TVNZ One Tonight, 17 February 1997. However, the Listener reported that 'Stark gave evidence in court against him, carefully skirting around her relationship with the singer. [Amanda Rees, the author of the play] said that "[i]n those days, if she was seen as gay, she would have been characterised as an unreliable witness and unable to testify. And she was the only witness."' Louise Reynolds, 'Gilt Complex', Listener, 15 February 1997. We did not attend any of the performances of Amanda Rees's play and the author would not grant us permission to read any of her scripts.

3 Peter Wells, 'Freda Stark: 23 March 1910-19 March 1999', Express: New Zealand's Newspaper of Gay Expression, 1 April 1999.

4 Donna Fleming, 'Murder, forbidden love - what a past!', New Zealand Women' s Weekly, 17 January 1994.

5 Shirley Hodsell Williams, Dictionary of New Zealand Biography, Vol. 5, p.494.